


we show off our different scarlet letters

by possibilityleft



Category: The Thrilling Adventure Hour
Genre: A Really Bad Avatar Joke, A Surprising Amount of Meta About Names, Angst, Backstory, Canon Compliant, F/M, Gen, Missing Scene, Pre-OT3
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-23
Updated: 2014-12-23
Packaged: 2018-03-02 23:06:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,002
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2829302
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/possibilityleft/pseuds/possibilityleft
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A few scenes from the life of the Red Plains Rider.</p><p> </p><p>  <em>"G'rop N'go-goth," Croach said, "I do not understand why I would be tied to the space train tracks in this scenario.  You know that I have the ability to excrete a slippery solution that would help me escape these bonds."</em></p><p> </p><p>  <em>"Shut up and listen, Croach," Red said.</em></p>
            </blockquote>





	we show off our different scarlet letters

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the [Thrilling Adventure Hour Secret Santa](http://tahss2014.tumblr.com/) for [goggles-girl](http://goggles-girl.tumblr.com). I was hoping to get more of the OT3 thing in here but I hope you like it anyway!

Red didn't know much about what her life had been like before she had been rescued by Martians. She didn't even think to ask when she was young; this life was normal to her. She ran around and scuffled with the other Martian children, and all of their knees were constantly red with dust. It was pretty easy, back then.

She came back to the tent one night and sat down to eat, but when her parent gave her the bowl, she just stared at it and sighed and pushed it around with her space spoon.

"Is there something the matter?" her father asked. His name was Talok the Protective. He had already raised two broods before her, and they had never squirmed when he tried to wash behind their antennae. Or so she was told.

"We started reading English today," she said, not looking up from her meal, turning the spoon around in her pale hands. "Chapter One of Bushwackers of Neptune."

"You will like that one," he said, sitting down across from her. "There are a number of gunfights, including the fourth best one in that series."

"It's just weird," she said, "all those humans..."

She frowned, and then tried to smooth out her face. It was all right to express some emotions since she was still a kid, but she didn't want to get into the habit. She wasn't entirely sure why she felt so uncomfortable listening to a story full of humans and empty of her people. She'd figure that out later.

"Perhaps I should tell you the story of how I met you," he said, and she looked up. For a moment, her eyes were bright. Then she shrugged.

"If you want," she said.

In Martian, Red had a lisp, probably because of the structure of her jaws and teeth. Talok chose not to mention it today. He told the story.

He was out with a small group of hunters when they saw the smoke on the horizon, which was unusual in the area. There weren't any humans around, and as far as they knew, no other tribes. When they went to investigate, it was too late for the rocket wagon train, far too late.

"Robot banditos," Talok said. "Eat your dinner. I will describe the experience fully."

He did, however, omit some of the more bloody details. In the midst of the already waning flames, a cry went up, and something wailed. Talok was not known as the Protective for nothing, so he followed the sound, and found a human baby, securely strapped into one of the wagons. She was completely unharmed, somehow, but nearly out of oxygen. She continued screaming even as she turned blue, little fists fighting the air.

Talok had picked her up and found some spare oxygen canisters, and as soon as he put her on the front of his hoversaddle with a bottle, she quieted.

"And that human baby was you," he told her. "That is why I named you Na'vi, which means blue in the old tongue."

"I know what it means!" Red scoffed. (This was, of course, long before she had been designated the Red Plains Rider.) "And no one ever came looking for me?"

Talok was silent. He got up and puttered around the tent, taking her bowl to wash.

"I do not think there was anyone who could," he said, finally, in his calm, clipped tones, and Red nodded.

"I'm under onus to you for telling the story," she said solemnly.

"Tomorrow you can air out the bedding to decrease your onus," he told her, and the conversation moved on to other things.

*

Red would never be described as a people pleaser, unless that person was herself. This was not an indictment of her character; she grew up seeking justice for others at every turn, whether or not that pleased everyone involved. She blamed the stupid romance novels. There was always a dashing human with a quick draw and a fainting human enrapt with joy. She wanted to be the marshal when she grew up.

She made up stories of her own and told them to Croach. She always saved him in the stories, just in the knick of time. Croach tried to be supportive, but he always asked too much questions about the worlds in which this was plausible. He was terrible at pretend. He liked historical accuracy.

She guessed it wouldn't be too bad to marry him someday, although she wasn't really clear when that had been decided. She didn't remember having any input in it; it had just been part of her adult name, when they gave it to her last year when she turned eleven after she completed her junior trials.

Would her name change, then? From "She Who Came To Us From the Earthens, But Who Is Accepted as Our Own and Who Shall Be Betrothed to Our Youngling, Croach the Tracker" to "She Who Came To Us From the Earthens, But Who Is Accepted as Our Own and Who Is Married To Croach the Tracker?"

They were both way too long in her opinion. 

"G'rop N'go-goth," Croach said, "I do not understand why I would be tied to the space train tracks in this scenario. You know that I have the ability to excrete a slippery solution that would help me escape these bonds."

"Shut up and listen, Croach," Red said.

Chastened, he did. At least for the next minute or two.

*

"You're not sure," Red repeated. Croach didn't look sad, didn't look confused, didn't look like he felt anything at all. Red felt a rage rising in her that beat against her chest and demanded to be free. She was angry all the time now, or sad, or worried, or something else worse. She was a terrible Martian, and she was just getting worse. No wonder he was expressing doubts about their betrothal.

"Breaking a betrothal is a very serious matter," Croach said, and Red thought, he doesn't even have to change his name when he does. "I am under onus to you for understanding."

Red spit into the dirt.

"I ain't gonna marry you. Ever," Red said. Her fingers trembled.

"I simply want some time to consider--" Croach said.

"Well I'm not gonna," she said, and kicked her hoversaddle into gear. It whirred, and whatever else Croach had to say was lost in the wind streaming past her ears.

She rode a long time.

*

It was too hard to pronounce -- that's why she called herself the Red Plains Rider now. It worked for her. That's what she said to herself. She'd never gotten her proper designation, anyway. Might as well find her own. She was getting pretty good at figuring stuff out by herself.

She ran into the new marshal by accident. She'd been tracking down a rogue robot and as it turned out, he'd been after the same bot. The first thing she thought was, He's so young! Her age, really. She was used to Dale, who was gruff and old and safe to talk to. She didn't know what to think of the new guy, although she realized with some dismay that she thought he was pretty cute.

"What's your name, again?" the marshal said, and Red rolled her eyes. 

"You can call me the Red Plains Rider," she said again. "Are you going to hand over that robot or not?"

He was a quick draw with those robot fists. She could see the shape of his collarbones, stark underneath his battered flannel shirt. She wanted to touch them. The marshal huffed.

"Of course not! He's going back to the marshal station to face justice," he said, and she stared at the zit on the corner of his mouth. He really believed in justice. And he was from Earth. He wouldn't last too long here, she thought.

"He'd better," she said, because really, the important thing was that he stopped harassing people, and locking him up would do the job.

Sparkman nodded and muttered something polite before he rode away, and she let out a breath she didn't know she was holding.

He was going to be trouble, for sure.

*

The thing of it was, Mars was large, and the marshal spent most of his time protecting settlements and doing paperwork and having dangerous arguments with science or technology aliens. Which left a lot that needed to be doing, around the edges.

Red became quite good at those cases -- at helping Martian and human settlements work out land disputes, or chasing down runaway hypercattle, or giving someone a shove right when they needed it. People began to respect her for her willingness to speak her mind, even when her words weren't particularly diplomatic. Red wasn't sure why; she was just doing what she thought of as her job. Grateful housewives and househusbands fed her and clothed her, and she stopped to work part-time for pay if she felt the need, but Red didn't need much.

At night she lay out on the red sands and stared up at a glittering starlit sky and wondered about all the people she could have been, and learned to like the one she was.

She went back to her tribe for a while, long enough that she and Croach learned to be friends again. And when she was ready to take to the saddle again, Talok the Protective loaded her up with enough food for three of her for a week and waved goodbye. She liked that.

She rode into another town and stayed a while, helping the marshal on occasion when he needed another gun, and she liked that too. She was used to humans by then, and had even begun to be amused by the constantly nervous Felton. 

But when Sparks invited her to stay and become his deputy, she handed him the badge back. She tried not to feel bad about the way his face fell, the way his mouth twisted under the shading brim of his hat.

She didn't make any expressions at all until she was a mile out of town, not that day.

*

The next time Red crossed paths with Nevada, Croach was with him. Red was a little put out by this; if the tribe had had some kind of problem that necessitated a lawman, why hadn't they called her instead?

"It has been a while since I have seen you, Red Plains Rider," Croach said.

"You two know each other?" Sparks asked, looking between them.

"What are you doing with him?" Red asked, ignoring the marshal, who was muttering something under his breath about Mars being a small planet, which would make no sense to Red if she hadn't heard the expression before, and got someone to explain it to her.

"He saved the tribe from a terrible flood," Croach said, "and so I am under onus to him on behalf of the tribe."

"I told him that I worked better alone," Sparks said, "but he wouldn't leave." There was a trace of old hurt in his voice. It was probably directed at her, but she ignored it.

"Probably better for you to have each other to look after," Red said to them, enjoying their immediate protests, and then the three of them stopped a cattle rustling that someone came shouting into the station to report. She stuck around for a few more days and no one said anything about commitment, but she got a message that she was needed elsewhere to mediate a dispute, so she went.

"See you later," Sparks said as she mounted up.

"Not if I see you first!" Red said, but she laughed, and he did too.

"I would most certainly see _you_ first," Croach said gravely. "My senses are much better than yours."

"Maybe you will, then," Red said, tipping her hat to them both, and she rode off smiling.

And if she rode a little faster, coming back, well, there was no one around to know.


End file.
